


fight for me with tooth and nail, fight for me like you fight for them

by ContrEeri



Category: Naruto
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Relationship Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 06:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18138752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ContrEeri/pseuds/ContrEeri
Summary: It's a strange mirror of the only fight they've ever had, but Gaara cannot make any concessions.





	fight for me with tooth and nail, fight for me like you fight for them

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 'just talk to me, please'

“What is there to say?” Lee asked, staring at Gaara. “You forbade me from opening the Eighth Gate, yet you were willing to throw your life away for your village.” 

“You knew that when this started,” Gaara snapped. “I’m the Kazekage. This village is everything--”

“And I am not.” Lee’s expressive face was hard, his boyish charm chased away by hurt and frustration. Gaara clenched his hands into fists. 

“You know that’s not true,” he said softly. “I love you.”

Lee’s shoulders slumped and he dropped to the bed, holding his head in his hands. “But I will always be second best.”

And that was the problem.

Lee had been second best his whole life—sometimes not even that. He couldn’t be second best for Gaara, he couldn’t be less than his whole world. Yet he was because Gaara’s position dictated that he was.

“Lee.” Gaara stepped forward, reached for Lee, but dropped his hand. What could he say to make this better? What could he do? Lie? Step down as Kazekage? 

He couldn’t do that. Being Kazekage was all he knew how to be. What was he without that? A jinchuuriki? A demon? A shinobi? A man? He lived for his village, he would die for his village. He couldn’t promise to live for Lee, he couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t leave Lee to live without him if Suna needed him to die. 

“Is this...” Gaara’s words caught in his throat. He couldn’t bring himself to ask the question, and the silence hung heavy with the unvoiced words. 

Lee looked up at him, tears in his eyes. “Do you want it to be?” 

Gaara shook his head, mute and numb. “What would I do without you?” 

Lee’s smile was watery, his lips trembling. “Without me?” He shook his head. “I am sure you would continue living for your village.” 

Somehow, despite the softness of his tone, the words hurt like a blow. It felt as though Lee were rubbing salt in the wound, but whose wound Gaara couldn’t say. Did he have any right to call this his wound when he was the one who’d inflicted it upon them? 

“They do not deserve you,” Lee whispered into the silence. 

“Don’t,” Gaara started to say. 

“But they do not,” Lee interrupted. “They were horrible to you when you were young, when you were just a child. You were just a weapon to them.” 

Gaara turned his back to Lee and the words he spoke, turned his back to the truth and left the bedroom they’d shared for almost a year. Try as he might, the truth followed him, nipping at his heals, along with the memory of Lee’s tear stained face. 

He threw himself into his work, praying that Lee would still be there when he was done.


End file.
